Family
members Vincent Domínguez-Schugt, Mario
Domínguez-Burguette, Roswitha Domínguez,
Stephan Domínguez, and Suli Domínguez are joint
plaintiffs in this case.[2] They bring this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C.
§§ 1983, 1985, and 1986 against a variety of
defendants, mostly state, county, and town officials, for
applying tax laws to a parcel of property that each of them
currently own. Plaintiffs also allege that officials failed
to recognize unregistered transfers of the property between
the various plaintiffs, and they sue a private attorney who
they hired to draft a quit-claim deed transferring ownership
between two family members because he proceeded to register
the deed with Dunn County. Plaintiffs seek a preliminary
injunction enjoining defendants from seeking to foreclose on
the property. Dkt. 3.

The
various groups of defendants have filed motions to dismiss
the case, Dkt. 15; Dkt. 19; Dkt. 24, raising a variety of
arguments. I need address only a few of them here, because I
conclude that plaintiffs come nowhere close to stating any
claim for relief under federal law.

This
court rarely gets involved in matters involving the
collection of state taxes. The Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C.
§ 1341, prohibits federal district courts, such as this
one, from “enjoin[ing], suspend[ing] or restrain[ing]
the assessment, levy or collection of any tax under State law
where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the
courts of such State.” Courts have concluded that
Wisconsin’s processes for challenging tax
determinations meet that requirement. See, e.g.,
Darne v. State of Wis., Dep’t of Revenue, 137
F.3d 484, 490 (7th Cir. 1998); Hansen v. Wis. Dep’t
of Revenue, No. 06-cv-290-bbc, 2006 WL 1589648, at *3
(W.D. Wis. June 5, 2006).

Even
aside from the Tax Injunction Act, plaintiffs do not state
any federal claims for relief because they do not raise any
plausibly legitimate theories that defendants violated their
civil rights. The main thrust of their complaint is that they
should not have to pay taxes on the parcel because they have
an “inherent right to own property without
obligation.” Dkt. 1, at 8. But this is simply untrue.
Any taxpayer may seek state-created exemptions to tax
liability or use state administrative or court processes to
challenge tax issues, but a property owner cannot
unilaterally declare his or her property to be untaxable.

On at
least two occasions, plaintiffs transferred the property
between themselves without officially recording the
transfers. They contend that government officials violated
their rights by failing to change their ownership records to
match the transfers, and by failing to respond to their
letters demanding that the government show proof that a
particular family member owned the property. They suggest
that the failure to respond to their correspondence means
that the parcel cannot be taxed, which as stated above is a
frivolous theory. If they mean to say that their right to due
process was violated by defendants’ responses or lack
thereof, their allegations do not support due process claims.
The Due Process Clause requires public officials to give
notice and an opportunity to be heard before depriving an
individual of property. Manley v. Law, 889 F.3d 885,
890 (7th Cir. 2018). But there are already procedures for
landowners to record transfers in ownership and to challenge
tax determinations by the government. Plaintiffs are not
alleging that they were denied access to those procedures.

Instead,
plaintiffs sue defendants for using this process. They bring
claims against government officials and plaintiffs’ own
onetime attorney, Brent D. Skinner, who drafted a quit-claim
deed transferring the parcel between two of the plaintiffs
and then recorded the deed with the county. I take plaintiffs
to be saying that Skinner conspired with county officials to
subject the parcel to taxation by registering the transfer.
But that is also a frivolous theory that cannot support any
federal claims: the parcel was always subject to taxation,
and Skinner did not conspire in the violation of any of
plaintiffs’ federal rights by registering a transfer
under Wisconsin’s deed-recording process.

Ordinarily
when a plaintiff’s complaint fails to state a claim for
federal relief, the court orders the plaintiff to amend the
complaint instead of immediately dismissing the case
outright. See Felton v. City of Chicago, 827 F.3d
632, 636 (7th Cir. 2016) (“[W]hen a
plaintiff-especially a pro se plaintiff-fails to state a
claim in his first complaint, he should ordinarily be given a
chance to amend.”). But here, the problem is not that
plaintiffs have failed to adequately state the basis for
their claims, it is that their theories regarding the
taxability of real estate are fundamentally flawed. No
amendment to the complaint can fix that problem. So I will
grant defendants’ motions to dismiss regarding all of
plaintiffs’ federal claims.

Plaintiffs
also raise a number of claims under Wisconsin law, such as
defamation and intentional or negligent infliction of
emotional distress. But a federal court generally does not
have jurisdiction over a state-law claim unless it is related
to a federal claim that is pending in the same case, 28
U.S.C. § 1367, or the plaintiff and defendants are
citizens of different states and the amount in controversy is
greater than $75,000, 28 U.S.C. § 1332. In this case, I
am dismissing all the federal claims, so I decline to
exercise jurisdiction over any of plaintiffs’ state-law
claims under § 1367. Groce v. Eli Lilly &
Co., 193 F.3d 496, 499–501 (7th Cir.1999)
(“[I]t is the well established law of this circuit that
the usual practice is to dismiss without prejudice state
supplemental claims whenever all federal claims have been
dismissed prior to trial.”). Plaintiffs do not allege
that they and defendants are citizens of different states and
nothing in the complaint suggests that they are, so I cannot
exercise jurisdiction under § 1332 either. Accordingly,
I will dismiss plaintiffs’ state-law claims for lack of
jurisdiction.

A
grouping of county defendants has filed a motion to sanction
plaintiffs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 for
filing a frivolous complaint. Rule 11(b) requires that a
party raise only non-frivolous arguments. I have already
concluded that plaintiffs’ legal theories underpinning
their federal claims are manifestly frivolous, so I will
grant defendants’ motion for sanctions. A sanction
imposed under Rule 11 “must be limited to what suffices
to deter repetition of the conduct or comparable conduct by
others similarly situated.” Rule 11(c)(4). The sanction
can include reasonable attorney fees and expenses incurred in
defending against the sanctioned conduct. Id. I
conclude that this is an appropriate sanction, so I will
grant defendants’ motion. I will direct defendants to
submit an itemized accounting of its reasonable expenses. I
stress the word “reasonable”-plaintiffs’
arguments were so clearly frivolous that defendants’
litigation efforts in response should not have been
difficult. I will give plaintiffs a chance to object to the
amount sought.

Our website includes the first part of the main text of the court's opinion.
To read the entire case, you must purchase the decision for download. With purchase,
you also receive any available docket numbers, case citations or footnotes, dissents
and concurrences that accompany the decision.
Docket numbers and/or citations allow you to research a case further or to use a case in a
legal proceeding. Footnotes (if any) include details of the court's decision. If the document contains a simple affirmation or denial without discussion,
there may not be additional text.

Buy This Entire Record For
$7.95

Download the entire decision to receive the complete text, official citation,
docket number, dissents and concurrences, and footnotes for this case.